The installation of electrical wiring into buildings, machines and other large structures, such as aircraft and ocean liners, is often a time-consuming and cumbersome one. Using the installation of electrical wiring into a home or office building as an example, the electrician often needs to pull wire through walls, conduits, and openings in floors and stud work for a considerable distance to connect various power supplies to various switches and mechanisms.
Such wire is commonly obtained from the manufacturer in a wound package without a central spool and the electrician is required to pull the wire from the package, typically a cardboard box with a perforated opening provided therein. Since the cardboard box does not have an axis around which the wire can rotate as it is being pulled, and the wire is typically pulled from the inner diameter of the package, the box is often pulled with the wire, and the wire often becomes tangled or coiled as it is dispensed. If the wire is provided on a spool, the electrician is required to fabricate some sort of axle about which the spool can rotate for the wire to be dispensed. Since the wire is not only pulled a great distance, but also at various angles, the process often becomes cumbersome and time-consuming.
Augmenting these difficulties is the fact that, often, the electrician is required to pull more than one wire at a time through the same conduit or structure. These wires may be of different size, and provided on different diameter spools, effecting the rate at which the wire is dispensed. Moreover, a tangle in one particular wire will prevent successful dispensing of all of the wires until that one particular tangle is resolved. In the case of buildings or similar structures, multiple wires on the order of six to twelve or more different strands may be pulled at the same time, whereas with aircraft and ocean liners, wire bundles having individual strands in excess of forty to sixty strands is not uncommon.
My previous invention, as embodied in U.S. Pat. No. 5,509,671 (the '671 patent), therefore discloses a cart for carrying spools of wire which enabled multiple spools of wire to be maintained and transported on a single, easily movable cart. The cart includes a wheeled frame somewhat resembling that of a conventional cargo dolly with a plurality of racks removably attached to the front of the frame and providing mandrels about which the spools can rotate. Multiple wires can therefore be pulled from the cart embodied in my previous '671 patent. Moreover, since the spools are kept in relatively close proximity, even though multiple wires may be pulled at the same time, the wires are removed at the relatively same rate of speed.
Sometimes, it is advantageous to provide additional tools and accessories for use in conjunction with the wire installation process. For example, it would be advantageous to provide various hand tools and devices such as fasteners and junction boxes, and the like, along with the wire provided directly on the cart. Therefore, as disclosed in another of my previous inventions, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/172,829, now allowed, I disclose a cart for carrying spools of wire and utility trays which in addition to carrying the aforementioned wire spools, also provides multiple gravity leveling trays on the cart for holding and transporting such devices and tools.
With all of this being said, a still further need exists in the industry for a cart adapted to hold spools even larger than those carried by my aforementioned patented structures as well as in greater quantities, to carry additional relatively small hand tools and fasteners, and in addition, to carry relatively large materials such as, ladders, and lengths of conduit through which the wiring is often pulled. While it would be advantageous to provide a cart from which relatively large wire spools can be dispersed, it would at the same time be advantageous to be able to dispense wire from relatively small spools from the same cart. However, the wire must be situated on the cart such that the wire will be dispensed at the relatively same rate of speed and provided on a mobile cart sufficiently sized to be easily transported about various work sites.